Students at Mississippi College Career Day Weigh Job Options
Recruiters like Lauren Dendy liked what they saw when sizing up job-seeking Mississippi College students.
“They were all very professional and well-dressed,” Dendy said Tuesday as hundreds of students visited with more than 80 employers at MC’s 2015 Career Day. “They brought their resumes and came prepared.”
Dendy works as a recruiter at BKD, a national firm of CPAs and financial advisors with offices in downtown Jackson. BKD is the 12th largest company of its type in the USA, including 60 employees in the metro area.
A healthier USA economy, with unemployment rates holding at 5.7 percent, represents encouraging news to the Class of 2015. “In the accounting world, there will be more jobs and more employees,” she said. “We are recruiting this spring and fall.”
A few tables away in Anderson Hall, Daniel Mortimer, a recruiter at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, returned to his alma mater to talk to students about job prospects. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi is home to 600 employees in metro Jackson, and seeks to fill 50 openings.
No too many years ago, Daniel attended MC’s Career Fair as a student and reaped benefits from the experience. “I learned to network and sell myself.”
Lots of networking went on from the minute the doors opened at 10 a.m. until Career Day wrapped up four hours later at the B.C. Rogers Student Center. The winter’s Big Chill in Mississippi didn’t impact enthusiasm levels for students or employers.
“It is so exciting meeting potential employers as a future teacher,” says MC senior Mary Jayne Looney, 21. The elementary education major from Birmingham, Alabama chatted with Clinton Public School District officials before visiting with staffers from other districts.
“All the education staff is down here at one end,” says Looney, who’s on track to graduate in May. “You don’t need to walk very far.”
District officials from Jackson, Rankin County, Canton, the Delta and other regions were on hand to greet future educators.
“We get a lot of great teachers and administrators at Mississippi College,” says Sandi Beason, director of public relations at the 4,975-student district. “We’ve met a lot of good qualified candidates.’’
Assistant Superintendent Tim Martin agrees. “We love having MC students do their student teaching with us,” he said. “That’s a 12-week on-the-job interview.”
Other recruiters traveled from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Warren County, near the Mississippi River
The Vicksburg office, says recruiter James Henry seeks to hire engineers, math and science majors, among others. “A good bit of our research is geared to the military. What’s going on around the world,” he said. “We have plenty of work.”
So does the University of Mississippi Medical Center that has 15,000 employees. Its population rises to 25,000 on the Jackson campus when adding students. “We are certainly hiring on a daily basis,” says UMMC recruiter Justin Alderson. “We really like your nursing students. You do a good job.”
Student nurses like MC senior Jordy White, 23, of Benton weighed job possibilities at UMMC’s emergency room and at Baptist Hospital, too. “The hospitals came here with great information.”
Career Day resulted in several immediate offers. Dewitt Hynes of the human resources office for the Rankin County Public Schools, reports at least two job offers were made to future educators. “We get a bunch of teachers from MC.”
The Office of Career Services sponsored the program that took months of planning. President Lee Royce joined faculty and staff on the Clinton campus and from MC’s School of Law to visit students and employers.
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